Merging and unmerging objects using graphical representation

ABSTRACT

Some embodiments of the present invention include a method for merging records associated with objects in an object database and include generating, by a database system, a graph database corresponding to an object database, wherein objects in the object database are represented as nodes of graphs in the graph database, and wherein relationships among the objects in the object database are represented as edges of the graphs in the graph database; receiving, by the database system, information about a first object and information about a dimension based on a first relationship associated with the first object; and performing, by the database system, a merge operation using the information about the first object and the information about the dimension on the graph database instead of on the object database.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

One or more implementations relate generally to data processing, and more specifically for merging and unmerging data.

BACKGROUND

The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also correspond to implementations of the claimed inventions.

Data associated with an organization may be organized based on relationship. Data may be merged for various reasons including, for example, to avoid redundancy. In certain situations, data that is merged may need to be unmerged. Existing merging techniques makes unmerging difficult because the unmerging may merely recover data that is deleted but may not recover other characteristics that the data possess prior to the merge.

BRIEF SUMMARY

For some embodiments, a method for merging records associated with objects in an object database may include generating, by a database system, a graph database corresponding to the object database. The objects in the object database are represented as nodes of graphs in the graph database. The relationships among the objects in the object database are represented as edges of the graphs in the graph database. The method further includes receiving, by the database system, information about a first object and information about a dimension based on a first relationship associated with the first object; and performing, by the database system, a merge operation using the information about the first object and the information about the dimension on the graph database instead of on the object database. Other aspects and advantages of the present invention can be seen on review of the drawings, the detailed description and the claims, which follow.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only to provide examples of possible structures and process steps for the disclosed techniques. These drawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail that may be made to embodiments by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure.

FIG. 1A is example diagram of a computing system that may be used with some embodiments.

FIG. 1B is an example directed graph that may be used to represent objects and their relationships, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2 is an example diagram of a network environment that may be used with some embodiments.

FIGS. 3A-3B show directed graph examples to merge nodes using a dimension that is based on a relationship, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIGS. 4A-4B show directed graph examples to merge nodes using a dimension that relates to duplicate records along a relationship, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIGS. 5A-5B show directed graph examples to merge nodes using a dimension that relates to duplicate records along a relationship, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example process for merging duplicate nodes using a directed graph, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example process for unmerging a previously completed merge operation using a directed graph, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 8A shows a system diagram illustrating architectural components of an applicable environment, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 8B shows a system diagram further illustrating architectural components of an applicable environment, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 9 shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture of a multi-tenant database environment, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 10 shows a system diagram further illustrating the architecture of a multi-tenant database environment, in accordance with some embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various implementations described or referenced herein are directed to different systems, apparatus, methods and computer-readable storage media for merging records associated with objects in an object database. In the following description, a graph database may be used to represent objects in an object database. A directed graph stored in the graph database may include one or more nodes. A node may represent an object. A node may be associated with an edge. An edge may represent a relationship between two nodes. Different operations may be performed based on the specified object and the associated relationship using the directed graph. An audit file may be maintained to store the details of the operations. The operations may include merge and unmerge operations.

The systems, apparatus, methods and computer-readable storage media for representing objects and their relationship using directed graphs and for using the directed graphs for merge and unmerge operations will be described with reference to example embodiments. These examples are being provided solely to add context and aid in the understanding of the present disclosure. It will thus be apparent to one skilled in the art that the techniques described herein may be practiced without some or all of these specific details. In other instances, well known process steps have not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present disclosure. Other applications are possible, such that the following examples should not be taken as definitive or limiting either in scope or setting.

In the following detailed description, references are made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in which are shown, by way of illustration, specific embodiments. Although these embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice the disclosure, it is understood that these examples are not limiting, such that other embodiments may be used and changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure.

As used herein, the term “multi-tenant database system” refers to those systems in which various elements of hardware and software of the database system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, a given application server may simultaneously process requests for a great number of customers, and a given database table may store rows for a potentially much greater number of customers.

The described subject matter may be implemented in the context of any computer-implemented system, such as a software-based system, a database system, a multi-tenant environment, or the like. Moreover, the described subject matter may be implemented in connection with two or more separate and distinct computer-implemented systems that cooperate and communicate with one another. One or more embodiments may be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a device, a method, a computer readable medium such as a computer readable storage medium containing computer readable instructions or computer program code, or as a computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein.

In general, businesses use a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system (also referred to as a database system or system) to manage business relationships and information associated with the business relationship. For example, this may include customer and prospect contact information, accounts, leads, and opportunities in one central location. The information may be stored in a database system as objects. The objects allow storing data specific to organization. For example, a CRM system may include “account” object, “contact” object and “opportunities” object. An object may include one or more records. For example, the “account” object may include a record for “IBM”, a record for “Salesforce.com” and a record for “Oracle”. Objects may have relationship with other objects. For example, an “account” object may have a relationship with a “contact” object.

The disclosed embodiments may include a method for merging records associated with objects in an object database and include generating, by a database system, a graph database corresponding to an object database, wherein objects in the object database are represented as nodes of graphs in the graph database, and wherein relationship among the objects in the object database are represented as edges of the graphs in the graph database; receiving, by the database system, information about a first object and information about a dimension based on a first relationship associated with the first object; and performing, by the database system, a merge operation using the information about the first object and the information about the dimension on the graph database instead of on the object database.

The disclosed embodiments may include an apparatus for merging records associated with objects in an object database and include a processor, and one or more stored sequences of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to generate a graph database corresponding to an object database, wherein objects in the object database are represented as nodes of graphs in the graph database, and wherein relationship among the objects in the object database are represented as edges of the graphs in the graph database; receive information about a first object and information about a dimension based on a first relationship associated with the first object; and perform a merge operation using the information about the first object and the information about the dimension on the graph database instead of on the object database.

The disclosed embodiments may include a machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for merging records associated with objects in an object database, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, may cause the one or more processors to generate a graph database corresponding to an object database, wherein objects in the object database are represented as nodes of graphs in the graph database, and wherein relationship among the objects in the object database are represented as edges of the graphs in the graph database; receive information about a first object and information about a dimension based on a first relationship associated with the first object; and perform a merge operation using the information about the first object and the information about the dimension on the graph database instead of on the object database.

While one or more implementations and techniques are described with reference to an embodiment in which merge operations are implemented in a system having an application server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multiple tenants, the one or more implementations and techniques are not limited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers. Embodiments may be practiced using other database architectures, i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope of the embodiments claimed. Likewise, embodiments may be practiced in cloud-based storage systems that make up an on-demand computing platform such as those provided by Amazon® Web Services.

Any of the above embodiments may be used alone or together with one another in any combination. The one or more implementations encompassed within this specification may also include embodiments that are only partially mentioned or alluded to or are not mentioned or alluded to at all in this brief summary or in the abstract. Although various embodiments may have been motivated by various deficiencies with the prior art, which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places in the specification, the embodiments do not necessarily address any of these deficiencies. In other words, different embodiments may address different deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Some embodiments may only partially address some deficiencies or just one deficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and some embodiments may not address any of these deficiencies.

The described subject matter may be implemented in the context of any computer-implemented system, such as a software-based system, a database system, a multi-tenant environment, or the like. Moreover, the described subject matter may be implemented in connection with two or more separate and distinct computer-implemented systems that cooperate and communicate with one another. One or more implementations may be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a device, a method, a computer readable medium such as a computer readable storage medium containing computer readable instructions or computer program code, or as a computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein.

FIG. 1A is a diagram of an example computing system that may be used with some embodiments of the present invention. The computing system 102 may be used by a user to log into a server computer system to enable the server computer system to perform merge or unmerge operations using directed graphs.

The computing system 102 is only one example of a suitable computing system, such as a mobile computing system, and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the design. Neither should the computing system 102 be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated. The design is operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computing systems. Examples of well-known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with the design include, but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, mini-computers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like. For example, the computing system 102 may be implemented as a mobile computing system such as one that is configured to run with an operating system (e.g., iOS) developed by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. or an operating system (e.g., Android) that is developed by Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.

Some embodiments of the present invention may be described in the general context of computing system executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that performs particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Those skilled in the art can implement the description and/or figures herein as computer-executable instructions, which can be embodied on any form of computing machine readable media discussed below.

Some embodiments of the present invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.

Referring to FIG. 1A, the computing system 102 may include, but are not limited to, a processing unit 120 having one or more processing cores, a system memory 130, and a system bus 121 that couples various system components including the system memory 130 to the processing unit 120. The system bus 121 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) locale bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus also known as Mezzanine bus.

The computing system 102 typically includes a variety of computer readable media. Computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by computing system 102 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media may store information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media include, but are not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by computing system 102. Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, or program modules.

The system memory 130 may include computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 131 and random access memory (RAM) 132. A basic input/output system (BIOS) 133, containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computing system 102, such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM 131. RAM 132 typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by processing unit 120. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 1A also illustrates operating system 134, application programs 135, other program modules 136, and program data 137.

The computing system 102 may also include other removable/non-removable volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only, FIG. 1A also illustrates a hard disk drive 141 that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive 151 that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk 152, and an optical disk drive 155 that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk 156 such as, for example, a CD ROM or other optical media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that can be used in the exemplary operating environment include, but are not limited to, USB drives and devices, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. The hard disk drive 141 is typically connected to the system bus 121 through a non-removable memory interface such as interface 140, and magnetic disk drive 151 and optical disk drive 155 are typically connected to the system bus 121 by a removable memory interface, such as interface 150.

The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed above and illustrated in FIG. 1A, provide storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computing system 102. In FIG. 1A, for example, hard disk drive 141 is illustrated as storing operating system 144, application programs 145, other program modules 146, and program data 147. Note that these components can either be the same as or different from operating system 134, application programs 135, other program modules 136, and program data 137. The operating system 144, the application programs 145, the other program modules 146, and the program data 147 are given different numeric identification here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they are different copies.

A user may enter commands and information into the computing system 102 through input devices such as a keyboard 162, a microphone 163, and a pointing device 161, such as a mouse, trackball or touch pad or touch screen. Other input devices (not shown) may include a joystick, game pad, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 120 through a user input interface 160 that is coupled with the system bus 121, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 191 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 121 via an interface, such as a video interface 190. In addition to the monitor, computers may also include other peripheral output devices such as speakers 197 and printer 196, which may be connected through an output peripheral interface 190.

The computing system 102 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 180. The remote computer 180 may be a personal computer, a hand-held device, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computing system 102. The logical connections depicted in

FIG. 1A includes a local area network (LAN) 171 and a wide area network (WAN) 173, but may also include other networks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computing system 102 may be connected to the LAN 171 through a network interface or adapter 170. When used in a WAN networking environment, the computing system 102 typically includes a modem 172 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN 173, such as the Internet. The modem 172, which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus 121 via the user-input interface 160, or other appropriate mechanism. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computing system 102, or portions thereof, may be stored in a remote memory storage device. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 1A illustrates remote application programs 185 as residing on remote computer 180. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.

It should be noted that some embodiments of the present invention may be carried out on a computing system such as that described with respect to FIG. 1A. However, some embodiments of the present invention may be carried out on a server, a computer devoted to message handling, handheld devices, or on a distributed system in which different portions of the present design may be carried out on different parts of the distributed computing system.

Another device that may be coupled with the system bus 121 is a power supply such as a battery or a Direct Current (DC) power supply) and Alternating Current (AC) adapter circuit. The DC power supply may be a battery, a fuel cell, or similar DC power source needs to be recharged on a periodic basis. The communication module (or modem) 172 may employ a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) to establish a wireless communication channel. The communication module 172 may implement a wireless networking standard such as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard, IEEE std. 802.11-1999, published by IEEE in 1999.

Examples of mobile computing systems may be a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a Netbook, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant, or other similar device with on board processing power and wireless communications ability that is powered by a Direct Current (DC) power source that supplies DC voltage to the mobile computing system and that is solely within the mobile computing system and needs to be recharged on a periodic basis, such as a fuel cell or a battery.

FIG. 1B is an example directed graph that may be used to represent objects and relationship, in accordance with some embodiments. The directed graph 100 is shown to include four nodes, each node representing a different object such as “account” object 105, “contact” object 106, “lead” object 107 or “portfolio” object 108. The edge 106A from the “contact” object 106 to the “account” object 105 represents a relationship between these two objects. For example, an account may have multiple contacts, and an account record associated with the “account” object 105 may be related to one or more contact records in the “contact” object 106. The edge 107A from the “lead” object 107 to the “account” object 105 represents a relationship between these two objects. For example, an account may have multiple leads, and an account record associated with the “lead” object 107 may be related to one or more lead records in the “lead” object 107. The edge 108A from the “portfolio” object 108 to the “contact” object 106 represents a relationship between these two objects. The edge 105A from the “account” object 105 to itself may represent a relationship between one account record and another account record. For example, the account edge may indicate that one account is a child or a parent of another account.

Each edge in the directed graph 100 may correspond to a level of abstraction. Thus, for the directed graph 100, there may be multiple levels of abstraction. A node of the directed graph 100 may be associated with a standard object or a custom object. Similarly, an edge of the directed graph 100 may be associated with a standard relationship or a custom relationship. Standard objects and standard relationships may be preconfigured by the CRM system. Custom objects and custom relationships may be configured for individual organizations based on their business requirements.

An object may be associated with different relationships. As shown in FIG. 1B, the node corresponding to the “account” object 105 is associated with an edge corresponding to the “contact” relationship 106A and an edge corresponding to the “lead” relationship 107A. For some embodiments, when the objects and their relationships are represented in a directed graph, operations that may affect the objects may be performed on the directed graph. One example of such operation is a merge operation.

Using a directed graph such as the directed graph 100, two different levels of abstraction may be described: one describing the objects (represented as nodes in the directed graph), the other describing the records based on the relationship (represented as edges in the directed graph). For some embodiments, a dimension may be defined as involving a relationship that may be used by an operation to act upon a directed graph. For example, the dimension may be based on the “contact” relationship 106A between the node representing the “contact” object 106 and the node representing the “account” object 105. As another example, the dimension may be based on the lead relationship 107A between the node representing the “lead” object 107 and the node representing the “account” object 105, or the “parent account” relationship 105A between an “account” object 105 and itself. Thus, it may be possible to have an operation such as a merge operation to act on a specified object using a specified dimension.

For some embodiments, operations acting upon an object using one dimension may not affect the object relative to another dimension. For example, operations acting upon the “account” object 105 using a dimension that is based on the “contact” relationship 106A may not affect the “account” object 105 relative to the “lead” relationship 107A with the “lead” object 107. For some embodiments, a merge rule may include information about an object whose records are to be merged and a dimension that the merge operation is based on. For example, a merge rule may indicate that duplicate accounts in the “account” object 105 are to be merged along the “contact” relationship 106A.

Using graph theory, nodes in a directed graph can be easily merged together by combining the edges that form a dimension to point to a fused node. Using the edges that represent the relationships among the objects at different levels of a directed graph, the directed graph may be traversed using any graph traversal algorithms to reach nodes that represent objects in the object database. For some embodiments, caching of object relationship and directed graph representation may be used to improve performance. A distributed caching model may be used. When the schema for custom objects and custom relationships are updated, the cache may be refreshed to reflect the update.

FIG. 2 shows a diagram of an example network environment that may be used with some embodiments of the present invention. Network environment 200 includes user computing systems 205 and 212. One or more of the user computing systems 205 and 212 may be a mobile computing system. The user computing systems 205 and 212 may be connected to the network 250 via a cellular connection or via a Wi-Fi router (not shown). The network 250 may be the Internet. The user computing systems 205 and 212 may be coupled with server computing system 255 via the network 250. The user computing systems 205 may include application module 208. A user may use the user computing system 205 and the application module 208 to connect to and communicate with the server computing system 255 and login to application 257 (e.g., a Salesforce.com® application). The server computing system 255 may be associated with an entity or organization (e.g., Salesforce.com®). The user computing system 205 may be used to issue merge and unmerge requests via a user interface or an API. For example, the user may issue a merge request to merge records associated with objects in an object database.

The server computing system 255 may be coupled with database 270 (also referred to as object database 270) configured to store objects associated with an entity. One example of an object database is “Oracle” relational database by Oracle Corporation of Redwood City, Calif. The server computing system 255 may also be coupled with another database 275 (also referred to as graph database 275) configured to store directed graphs associated with the objects stored in the object database 270. The graph database 275 may also be configured to store information associated with the relationships between the objects in the object database 270. One example of a graph database is an open source “Titan” graph database. The graph database 275 may be associated with an open source apache HBase storage backend.

For some embodiments, the graph database 275 may be defined when the object database 270 is defined, for example, at schema definition time. Both standard and custom objects may be represented as nodes in a directed graph. Mapping operations may be performed to map an object in the object database 270 to a node in the graph database 275. The relationship among the objects may be represented as edges in a directed graph in the graph database 275. For some embodiments, the relationship information may be cached for more efficient processing of, for example, merge and unmerge operations. For some embodiments, the graph database 275 is configured to be synchronized with the object database 270 in case changes are made to the objects in the object database 270. The changes to the objects may affect or change the relationship of associated graphs in the graph database 275. Having the graph database 275 in sync with the object database 270 may keep the graphical representation of the objects and their associated relationship accurate and up to date with respect to the object representation.

For some embodiments, operations that may affect the objects in the object database 270 may be performed using the graph database 275 instead of the object database 270. Using the graph database 275 may be advantageous because the graph database 275 may be more scalable than the object database 270. Further, having an application programming interface (API) associated with the graph database 275 may enable faster searching, querying and filtering operations as compared to using an API associated with the object database 270.

FIG. 3A shows a directed graph example for merging nodes using a dimension that is based on a relationship, in accordance with some embodiments. Directed graph 300 includes multiple nodes representing accounts and contacts. Based on a “parent account” relationship 306, the accounts 310, 320 and 330 are related to the account 305. Based on a “contact” relationship 308, the contacts 312, 314 and 316 are related to the account 310, the contacts 322 and 324 are related to the account 320, and the contact 332 is related to the account 330. When there is a merge rule that indicates that the accounts in the account object are to be merged using a dimension that is based on the “parent account” relationship 306 (shown in bold), then a merge operation may combine the accounts 305, 310, 320 and 330.

FIG. 3B shows a directed graph example after a merge operation using a dimension that is based on a relationship, in accordance with some embodiments. Directed graph 350 shows a fused node that represents a merged account data structure 360 after merging the accounts 305, 310, 320 and 330. For some embodiments, the nodes representing the accounts 305, 310, 320 and 330 may be stored together with the fused node representing the merged account data structure 360 in the graph database 275.

It may be noted that the dimension used with the merge operation described with FIGS. 3A and 3B is based on the “parent account” relationship 306 and not along the “contact” relationship 308. This means the merge operation may ignore the contacts associated with the “contact” relationship 308. As such, the contacts of the accounts 310, 320 and 330 may remain undisturbed and may remain linked to the accounts 310, 320 and 330 in the merged account data structure 360. It may be noted that even though the nodes representing the accounts 310, 320 and 330 are merged into the fused node representing the merged data structure 360, the merge operation may affect only the graph database 275 and not the object database 270.

FIG. 4A shows a directed graph example for merging nodes using a dimension that relates to duplicate records along a relationship, in accordance with some embodiments. Directed graph 400 includes nodes that represent the accounts 410 (“Salesforce”), 420 (“IBM”) and 430 (“Salesforce.com”). Based on the “contact” relationship 408, the contacts 412 and 416 are related to the account 410, the contact 422 is related to the account 420, and the contacts 432 and 434 are related to the account 430. In this example, a duplicate detection algorithm applied to the account object may determine that the account 410 (Salesforce) and the account 430 (Salesforce.com) are duplicates of one another and belong to the same duplicate set. When there is a merge rule that indicates that the accounts in the account object are to be merged using a dimension that is based on the “contact” relationship 408 (shown in bold), then a merge operation may combine the two accounts 410 (Salesforce) and 430 (Salesforce.com) because they belong to the same duplicate set. The account 420 (IBM) is not included in the same duplicate set, and therefore is not considered by the merge operation.

FIG. 4B shows a directed graph example after a merge operation using a dimension that is based on duplicate records, in accordance with some embodiments. Directed graph 450 shows a fused node that represents a merged account data structure 460 after merging the accounts 410 (“Salesforce”) and 430 (“Salesforce.com”). It may be noted that none of the contacts 412, 416, 432 and 434 of the accounts 410 and 430 are merged because they are distinct from one another, and therefore it would not make sense to merge them. For some embodiments, information related to operations performed on a directed graph may be stored in an audit file for subsequent processing. For example, when the merge operation affects the nodes and edges of the directed graph 450, the information about the affected nodes and edges may be stored in the audit file 465. Similarly, when a node in a directed graph is updated, information about the update may be stored in the audit file 465. The audit file 465 may also be configured to store record identification (ID) of the record that is affected by an operation. For some embodiments, a merge rule may be associated with a unique merge rule ID. When a merge operation is performed, a merge rule ID used by the merge operation may be stored in the audit file 465. A merge rule storage area 466 may be used to store the merge rules. For example, the audit file 465 may be used by an unmerge operation in a way that is consistent with previously performed merge operation.

FIG. 5A shows another directed graph example to merge nodes using a dimension that relates to duplicate records along a relationship, in accordance with some embodiments. Directed graph 500 includes nodes that represent the accounts 410 (“Salesforce”) and 430 (“Salesforce.com”). Based on a “contact” relationship 508, the contacts 412 and 416 are related to the account 410, and the contacts 434, 536 and 538 are related to the account 430. In this example, a duplicate detection algorithm applied to the account object may determine that the accounts 410 (Salesforce) and 430 (Salesforce.com) are duplicates of one another. The duplicate detection algorithm may also determine that the contacts 536 (J. Green) and 538 (John Green) of the account 430 are duplicates of one another. When there is a merge rule that indicates that the accounts in the account object are to be merged using a dimension that is based on duplicate records along the contact relationship 508 (shown in bold), a merge operation may combine the two duplicate accounts 410 (Salesforce) and 430 (Salesforce.com) and the two duplicate contacts 536 and 538.

FIG. 5B is an example diagram showing a result of a merge operation based on a merge rule using a dimension that is based on duplicate records, in accordance with some embodiments. Directed graph 550 shows a fused node that represents a merged account data structure 560 after merging the accounts 410 (“Salesforce”) and 430 (“Salesforce.com”). The directed graph 550 also shows a fused node that represents a merged contact data structure 570 after merging the contacts 536 (“J. Green”) and 538 (“John Green”). A link is shown between the merged contact data structure 570 and the account 430. Since the remaining contacts 412, 416 and 434 are distinct from one another, they remain the same after the merge.

It may be possible that there are database operations that cause records to be deleted from the object database 270. As an example, if the contact 416 (Bob Brown) is to be deleted from the object database, then the node representing the contact 416 (shown in bold and dotted lines) in the directed graph 55 and associated edge may be marked for deletion. For some embodiments, when a record is to be deleted from the object database 270, that record may not be permanently deleted. Instead, the record may be moved into a temporary storage area or recycle bin associated with the object database 270. A certain holding period (e.g., 15 days) may be applied before permanent deletion from the temporary storage area may occur. An example of a temporary storage area 565 is shown in FIG. 5B storing the record for the contact 416 (Bob Brown). After the holding period expires, the record for the contact 416 (Bob Brown) may be permanently deleted from the temporary storage area 565, and the node representing the contact 416 may be deleted from the directed graph 550.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example process for merging duplicate records using a directed graph, in accordance with some embodiments. The process 600 may be applied to merge duplicate records associated a first object stored in an object database. The first object may be related to a second object in the object database 270. For example, the first object may be an account object, and the second object may be a contact object. The first and second objects may be represented as nodes and their relationship may be represented as edges in a directed graph stored in the graph database 275. The process may start at block 605 where information about the first object may be determined from a merge rule. For example, a merge rule may indicate that the merge operation is to be applied to the duplicate accounts in the account object.

At block 610, information about a dimension associated with the first object and the second object may be determined. The dimension may be along a relationship between the first object and the second object. For example, the dimension may be based on the results of the duplicate record algorithm along the contact relationship between the account object and the contact object.

At block 615, a duplicate detection algorithm may be performed to determine the duplicate records associated with the first object. At block 620, when there are duplicate records found in the first object, the merge operation may then be performed using the nodes and edges of the directed graph. An example of merging based on duplicate records is described in FIGS. 4A and 4B.

At block 625, an audit file 465 is maintained to keep track of the affected objects and operations acted upon them to enable subsequent unmerge operation if necessary. An example of the information that is stored in the audit file 465 is a merge rule ID of a merge rule that specifies information about the affected objects and the associated dimension. For some embodiments, when a merge operation is successfully completed, the merge may be committed after expiration of a commitment period (e.g., 15 days). For example, referring to FIG. 4B, when a merge is successfully committed, the merged account data structure 460 is generated in the graph database 275. However, the accounts 410 and 430 may remain intact in the object database 270. After the commitment period expires, the merge of the accounts 410 and 430 may be committed, and the merge may be reflected in the object database 270. For example, the account 410 may be permanently deleted from the object database 270, and the contacts 412 and 416 may be connected directly to the account 430 in the graph database 275. For some embodiments, the commitment period may be the same as the recycle bin holding period.

FIG. 7 shows an example unmerge process using the graph database, in accordance with some embodiments. The process 100 may start at block 705 when an unmerge request is received. The unmerge request may include a merge rule ID. At block 710, the merge rule and dimension may be retrieved using the audit file based on the merge rule ID included in the unmerge request. At block 715, information about the affected objects may be determined from the merge rule. At block 720, if it is determined that a record has been deleted from the object database 270 because of the merge operation, the record ID may be retrieved from the audit file, and the record may be recovered from the temporary storage area 565. At block 725, based on the information retrieved from the audit file 465 and the temporary storage area 565, the graph database and the object database may be updated to reflect the unmerge operation. For some embodiments, when the commitment period has expired for a merge operation, that merge operation cannot be unmerged.

FIG. 8A shows a system diagram 800 illustrating architectural components of an on-demand service environment, in accordance with some embodiments. A client machine located in the cloud 804 (or Internet) may communicate with the on-demand service environment via one or more edge routers 808 and 812. The edge routers may communicate with one or more core switches 820 and 824 via firewall 816. The core switches may communicate with a load balancer 828, which may distribute server load over different pods, such as the pods 840 and 844. The pods 840 and 844, which may each include one or more servers and/or other computing resources, may perform data processing and other operations used to provide on-demand services. Communication with the pods may be conducted via pod switches 832 and 836. Components of the on-demand service environment may communicate with a database storage system 856 via a database firewall 848 and a database switch 852.

As shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, accessing an on-demand service environment may involve communications transmitted among a variety of different hardware and/or software components. Further, the on-demand service environment 800 is a simplified representation of an actual on-demand service environment. For example, while only one or two devices of each type are shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, some embodiments of an on-demand service environment may include anywhere from one to many devices of each type. Also, the on-demand service environment need not include each device shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, or may include additional devices not shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B.

Moreover, one or more of the devices in the on-demand service environment 800 may be implemented on the same physical device or on different hardware. Some devices may be implemented using hardware or a combination of hardware and software. Thus, terms such as “data processing apparatus,” “machine,” “server” and “device” as used herein are not limited to a single hardware device, but rather include any hardware and software configured to provide the described functionality.

The cloud 804 is intended to refer to a data network or plurality of data networks, often including the Internet. Client machines located in the cloud 804 may communicate with the on-demand service environment to access services provided by the on-demand service environment. For example, client machines may access the on-demand service environment to retrieve, store, edit, and/or process information.

In some embodiments, the edge routers 808 and 812 route packets between the cloud 804 and other components of the on-demand service environment 800. The edge routers 808 and 812 may employ the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP is the core routing protocol of the Internet. The edge routers 808 and 812 may maintain a table of IP networks or ‘prefixes’ which designate network reachability among autonomous systems on the Internet.

In one or more embodiments, the firewall 816 may protect the inner components of the on-demand service environment 800 from Internet traffic. The firewall 816 may block, permit, or deny access to the inner components of the on-demand service environment 800 based upon a set of rules and other criteria. The firewall 816 may act as one or more of a packet filter, an application gateway, a stateful filter, a proxy server, or any other type of firewall.

In some embodiments, the core switches 820 and 824 are high-capacity switches that transfer packets within the on-demand service environment 800. The core switches 820 and 824 may be configured as network bridges that quickly route data between different components within the on-demand service environment. In some embodiments, the use of two or more core switches 820 and 824 may provide redundancy and/or reduced latency.

In some embodiments, the pods 840 and 844 may perform the core data processing and service functions provided by the on-demand service environment. Each pod may include various types of hardware and/or software computing resources. An example of the pod architecture is discussed in greater detail with reference to FIG. 8B.

In some embodiments, communication between the pods 840 and 844 may be conducted via the pod switches 832 and 836. The pod switches 832 and 836 may facilitate communication between the pods 840 and 844 and client machines located in the cloud 804, for example via core switches 820 and 824. Also, the pod switches 832 and 836 may facilitate communication between the pods 840 and 844 and the database storage 856.

In some embodiments, the load balancer 828 may distribute workload between the pods 840 and 844. Balancing the on-demand service requests between the pods may assist in improving the use of resources, increasing throughput, reducing response times, and/or reducing overhead. The load balancer 828 may include multilayer switches to analyze and forward traffic.

In some embodiments, access to the database storage 856 may be guarded by a database firewall 848. The database firewall 848 may act as a computer application firewall operating at the database application layer of a protocol stack. The database firewall 848 may protect the database storage 856 from application attacks such as structure query language (SQL) injection, database rootkits, and unauthorized information disclosure.

In some embodiments, the database firewall 848 may include a host using one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy traffic before passing it to a gateway router. The database firewall 848 may inspect the contents of database traffic and block certain content or database requests. The database firewall 848 may work on the SQL application level atop the TCP/IP stack, managing applications' connection to the database or SQL management interfaces as well as intercepting and enforcing packets traveling to or from a database network or application interface.

In some embodiments, communication with the database storage system 856 may be conducted via the database switch 852. The multi-tenant database system 856 may include more than one hardware and/or software components for handling database queries. Accordingly, the database switch 852 may direct database queries transmitted by other components of the on-demand service environment (e.g., the pods 840 and 844) to the correct components within the database storage system 856. In some embodiments, the database storage system 856 is an on-demand database system shared by many different organizations. The on-demand database system may employ a multi-tenant approach, a virtualized approach, or any other type of database approach. An on-demand database system is discussed in greater detail with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10.

FIG. 8B shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture of the pod 844, in accordance with one embodiment. The pod 844 may be used to render services to a user of the on-demand service environment 800. In some embodiments, each pod may include a variety of servers and/or other systems. The pod 844 includes one or more content batch servers 864, content search servers 868, query servers 872, file force servers 876, access control system (ACS) servers 880, batch servers 884, and app servers 888. Also, the pod 844 includes database instances 890, quick file systems (QFS) 892, and indexers 894. In one or more embodiments, some or all communication between the servers in the pod 844 may be transmitted via the switch 836.

In some embodiments, the application servers 888 may include a hardware and/or software framework dedicated to the execution of procedures (e.g., programs, routines, scripts) for supporting the construction of applications provided by the on-demand service environment 800 via the pod 844. Some such procedures may include operations for providing the services described herein. The content batch servers 864 may requests internal to the pod. These requests may be long-running and/or not tied to a particular customer. For example, the content batch servers 864 may handle requests related to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks.

The content search servers 868 may provide query and indexer functions. For example, the functions provided by the content search servers 868 may allow users to search through content stored in the on-demand service environment. The Fileforce servers 876 may manage requests information stored in the Fileforce storage 878. The Fileforce storage 878 may store information such as documents, images, and basic large objects (BLOBs). By managing requests for information using the Fileforce servers 876, the image footprint on the database may be reduced.

The query servers 872 may be used to retrieve information from one or more file systems. For example, the query system 872 may receive requests for information from the app servers 888 and then transmit information queries to the NFS 896 located outside the pod. The pod 844 may share a database instance 890 configured as a multi-tenant environment in which different organizations share access to the same database. Additionally, services rendered by the pod 844 may require various hardware and/or software resources. In some embodiments, the ACS servers 880 may control access to data, hardware resources, or software resources.

In some embodiments, the batch servers 884 may process batch jobs, which are used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the batch servers 884 may transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers 888, to trigger the batch jobs. In some embodiments, the QFS 892 may be an open source file system available from Sun Microsystems® of Santa Clara, Calif. The QFS may serve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessing information available within the pod 844. The QFS 892 may support some volume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be grouped together into a file system. File system metadata can be kept on a separate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming applications where long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the QFS system may communicate with one or more content search servers 868 and/or indexers 894 to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update data stored in the network file systems 896 and/or other storage systems.

In some embodiments, one or more query servers 872 may communicate with the NFS 896 to retrieve and/or update information stored outside of the pod 844. The NFS 896 may allow servers located in the pod 844 to access information to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed. In some embodiments, queries from the query servers 822 may be transmitted to the NFS 896 via the load balancer 820, which may distribute resource requests over various resources available in the on-demand service environment. The NFS 896 may also communicate with the QFS 892 to update the information stored on the NFS 896 and/or to provide information to the QFS 892 for use by servers located within the pod 844.

In some embodiments, the pod may include one or more database instances 890. The database instance 890 may transmit information to the QFS 892. When information is transmitted to the QFS, it may be available for use by servers within the pod 844 without requiring an additional database call. In some embodiments, database information may be transmitted to the indexer 894. Indexer 894 may provide an index of information available in the database 890 and/or QFS 892. The index information may be provided to file force servers 876 and/or the QFS 892.

FIG. 9 shows a block diagram of an environment 910 wherein an on-demand database service might be used, in accordance with some embodiments. Environment 910 includes an on-demand database service 916. User system 912 may be any machine or system that is used by a user to access a database user system. For example, any of user systems 912 can be a handheld computing system, a mobile phone, a laptop computer, a work station, and/or a network of computing systems. As illustrated in FIGS. 9 and 10, user systems 912 might interact via a network 914 with the on-demand database service 916.

An on-demand database service, such as system 916, is a database system that is made available to outside users that do not need to necessarily be concerned with building and/or maintaining the database system, but instead may be available for their use when the users need the database system (e.g., on the demand of the users). Some on-demand database services may store information from one or more tenants stored into tables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant database system (MTS). Accordingly, “on-demand database service 916” and “system 916” will be used interchangeably herein. A database image may include one or more database objects. A relational database management system (RDBMS) or the equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information against the database object(s). Application platform 918 may be a framework that allows the applications of system 916 to run, such as the hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. In an implementation, on-demand database service 916 may include an application platform 918 that enables creation, managing and executing one or more applications developed by the provider of the on-demand database service, users accessing the on-demand database service via user systems 912, or third party application developers accessing the on-demand database service via user systems 912.

One arrangement for elements of system 916 is shown in FIG. 9, including a network interface 920, application platform 918, tenant data storage 922 for tenant data 923, system data storage 924 for system data 925 accessible to system 916 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 926 for implementing various functions of system 916, and a process space 928 for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes, such as running applications as part of an application hosting service. Additional processes that may execute on system 916 include database indexing processes.

The users of user systems 912 may differ in their respective capacities, and the capacity of a particular user system 912 might be entirely determined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. For example, where a call center agent is using a particular user system 912 to interact with system 916, the user system 912 has the capacities allotted to that call center agent. However, while an administrator is using that user system to interact with system 916, that user system has the capacities allotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical role model, users at one permission level may have access to applications, data, and database information accessible by a lower permission level user, but may not have access to certain applications, database information, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level. Thus, different users may have different capabilities with regard to accessing and modifying application and database information, depending on a user's security or permission level.

Network 914 is any network or combination of networks of devices that communicate with one another. For example, network 914 can be any one or any combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network), telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, star network, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriate configuration. As the most common type of computer network in current use is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol) network (e.g., the Internet), that network will be used in many of the examples herein. However, it should be understood that the networks used in some embodiments are not so limited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol.

User systems 912 might communicate with system 916 using TCP/IP and, at a higher network level, use other common Internet protocols to communicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTP is used, user system 912 might include an HTTP client commonly referred to as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages to and from an HTTP server at system 916. Such an HTTP server might be implemented as the sole network interface between system 916 and network 914, but other techniques might be used as well or instead. In some embodiments, the interface between system 916 and network 914 includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality of servers. At least as for the users that are accessing that server, each of the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data; however, other alternative configurations may be used instead.

In some embodiments, system 916, shown in FIG. 9, implements a web-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, in some embodiments, system 916 includes application servers configured to implement and execute CRM software applications as well as provide related data, code, forms, web pages and other information to and from user systems 912 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database system related data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system, data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical database object, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of one tenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that one tenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unless such data is expressly shared. In certain embodiments, system 916 implements applications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. For example, system 916 may provide tenant access to multiple hosted (standard and custom) applications. User (or third party developer) applications, which may or may not include CRM, may be supported by the application platform 918, which manages creation, storage of the applications into one or more database objects and executing of the applications in a virtual machine in the process space of the system 916.

Each user system 912 could include a desktop personal computer, workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol (WAP) enabled device or any other computing system capable of interfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other network connection. User system 912 typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer® browser, Mozilla's Firefox® browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browser in the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like, allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system) of user system 912 to access, process and view information, pages and applications available to it from system 916 over network 914.

Each user system 912 also typically includes one or more user interface devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen or the like, for interacting with a graphical user interface (GUI) provided by the browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, etc.) in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and other information provided by system 916 or other systems or servers. For example, the user interface device can be used to access data and applications hosted by system 916, and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages that may be presented to a user. As discussed above, embodiments are suitable for use with the Internet, which refers to a specific global internetwork of networks. However, it should be understood that other networks can be used instead of the Internet, such as an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network, any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to some embodiments, each user system 912 and all of its components are operator configurable using applications, such as a browser, including computer code run using a central processing unit such as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 916 (and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) and all of their components might be operator configurable using application(s) including computer code to run using a central processing unit such as processor system 917, which may include an Intel Pentium® processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units.

A computer program product implementation includes a machine-readable storage medium (media) having instructions stored thereon/in which can be used to program a computer to perform any of the processes of the embodiments described herein. Computer code for operating and configuring system 916 to intercommunicate and to process web pages, applications and other data and media content as described herein are preferably downloaded and stored on a hard disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, may also be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotating media including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk (DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructions and/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, or transmitted over any other conventional network connection (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communication medium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.). It will also be appreciated that computer code for implementing embodiments can be implemented in any programming language that can be executed on a client system and/or server or server system such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java™, JavaScript®, ActiveX®, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, and many other programming languages as are well known may be used. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems®, Inc.).

According to some embodiments, each system 916 is configured to provide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client) systems 912 to support the access by user systems 912 as tenants of system 916. As such, system 916 provides security mechanisms to keep each tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than one MTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another (e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or they may be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one or more servers located in city A and one or more servers located in city B). As used herein, each MTS could include logically and/or physically connected servers distributed locally or across one or more geographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant to include a computing system, including processing hardware and process space(s), and an associated storage system and database application (e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art.

It should also be understood that “server system” and “server” are often used interchangeably herein. Similarly, the database object described herein can be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, a collection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online or offline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include a distributed database or storage network and associated processing intelligence.

FIG. 10 also shows a block diagram of environment 910 further illustrating system 916 and various interconnections, in accordance with some embodiments. FIG. 10 shows that user system 912 may include processor system 912A, memory system 912B, input system 912C, and output system 912D. FIG. 10 shows network 914 and system 916. FIG. 10 also shows that system 916 may include tenant data storage 922, tenant data 923, system data storage 924, system data 925, User Interface (UI) 1030, Application Program Interface (API) 1032, PL/SOQL 1034, save routines 1036, application setup mechanism 1038, applications servers 10001-1000N, system process space 1002, tenant process spaces 1004, tenant management process space 1010, tenant storage area 1012, user storage 1014, and application metadata 1016. In other embodiments, environment 910 may not have the same elements as those listed above and/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 912, network 914, system 916, tenant data storage 922, and system data storage 924 were discussed above in FIG. 9. Regarding user system 912, processor system 912A may be any combination of processors. Memory system 912B may be any combination of one or more memory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 912C may be any combination of input devices, such as keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks. Output system 912D may be any combination of output devices, such as monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown by FIG. 10, system 916 may include a network interface 920 (of FIG. 9) implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 1000, an application platform 918, tenant data storage 922, and system data storage 924. Also shown is system process space 1002, including individual tenant process spaces 1004 and a tenant management process space 1010. Each application server 1000 may be configured to tenant data storage 922 and the tenant data 923 therein, and system data storage 924 and the system data 925 therein to serve requests of user systems 912. The tenant data 923 might be divided into individual tenant storage areas 1012, which can be either a physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within each tenant storage area 1012, user storage 1014 and application metadata 1016 might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of a user's most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage 1014. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is a tenant might be stored to tenant storage area 1012. A UI 1030 provides a user interface and an API 1032 provides an application programmer interface to system 916 resident processes to users and/or developers at user systems 912. The tenant data and the system data may be stored in various databases, such as Oracle™ databases.

Application platform 918 includes an application setup mechanism 1038 that supports application developers' creation and management of applications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage 922 by save routines 1036 for execution by subscribers as tenant process spaces 1004 managed by tenant management process 1010 for example. Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 34 that provides a programming language style interface extension to API 1032. A detailed description of some PL/SOQL language embodiments is discussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA A MULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, filed Sep. 21, 4007, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by system processes, which manage retrieving application metadata 1016 for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as an application in a virtual machine.

Each application server 1000 may be communicably coupled to database systems, e.g., having access to system data 925 and tenant data 923, via a different network connection. For example, one application server 10001 might be coupled via the network 914 (e.g., the Internet), another application server 1000N-1 might be coupled via a direct network link, and another application server 1000N might be coupled by yet a different network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating between application servers 1000 and the database system. However, other transport protocols may be used to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain embodiments, each application server 1000 is configured to handle requests for any user associated with any organization that is a tenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove application servers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there is preferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to a specific application server 1000. In some embodiments, therefore, an interface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5 Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the application servers 1000 and the user systems 912 to distribute requests to the application servers 1000. In some embodiments, the load balancer uses a least connections algorithm to route user requests to the application servers 1000. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as round robin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, in certain embodiments, three consecutive requests from the same user could hit three different application servers 1000, and three requests from different users could hit the same application server 1000. In this manner, system 916 is multi-tenant, wherein system 916 handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data and applications across disparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs a sales force where each call center agent uses system 916 to manage their sales process. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., all applicable to that users personal sales process (e.g., in tenant data storage 922). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit, calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system having nothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her sales efforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example, if a call center agent is visiting a customer and the customer has Internet access in their lobby, the call center agent can obtain critical updates as to that customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' data regardless of the employers of each user, some data might be organization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users or all of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, there might be some data structures managed by system 916 that are allocated at the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at the user level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants including possible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keep data, applications, and application use separate. Also, because many tenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their own system, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions that may be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data and tenant specific data, system 916 might also maintain system level data usable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data might include industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharable among tenants.

In certain embodiments, user systems 912 (which may be client machines/systems) communicate with application servers 1000 to request and update system-level and tenant-level data from system 916 that may require sending one or more queries to tenant data storage 922 and/or system data storage 924. System 916 (e.g., an application server 1000 in system 916) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. System data storage 924 may generate query plans to access the requested data from the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, such as a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefined categories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may be used herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and custom objects according to some embodiments. It should be understood that “table” and “object” may be used interchangeably herein. Each table generally contains one or more data categories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a table contains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes a customer with fields for basic contact information such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe a purchase order, including fields for information such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant database systems, standard entity tables might be provided for use by all tenants. For CRM database applications, such standard entities might include tables for account, contact, lead, and opportunity data, each containing pre-defined fields. It should be understood that the word “entity” may also be used interchangeably herein with “object” and “table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to create and store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standard entities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standard objects, including custom index fields. U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,039, titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASE SYSTEM, by Weissman, et al., and which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes, teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database system. In some embodiments, for example, all custom entity data rows are stored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logical tables per organization. In some embodiments, multiple “tables” for a single customer may actually be stored in one large table and/or in the same table as the data of other customers.

These and other aspects of the disclosure may be implemented by various types of hardware, software, firmware, etc. For example, some features of the disclosure may be implemented, at least in part, by machine-readable media that include program instructions, state information, etc., for performing various operations described herein. Examples of program instructions include both machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher-level code that may be executed by the computer using an interpreter. Examples of machine-readable media include, but are not limited to, magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical media; and hardware devices that are specially configured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-only memory devices (“ROM”) and random access memory (“RAM”).

While one or more embodiments and techniques are described with reference to an implementation in which a service cloud console is implemented in a system having an application server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multiple tenants, the one or more embodiments and techniques are not limited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers. Embodiments may be practiced using other database architectures, i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope of the embodiments claimed.

Any of the above embodiments may be used alone or together with one another in any combination. Although various embodiments may have been motivated by various deficiencies with the prior art, which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places in the specification, the embodiments do not necessarily address any of these deficiencies. In other words, different embodiments may address different deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Some embodiments may only partially address some deficiencies or just one deficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and some embodiments may not address any of these deficiencies.

While various embodiments have been described herein, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present application should not be limited by any of the embodiments described herein, but should be defined only in accordance with the following and later-submitted claims and their equivalents. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: generating, by a database system, a graph database corresponding to an object database that includes a plurality of objects, each object having a relationship with one or more other objects in the database, the objects in the object database being represented as nodes of graphs in the graph database, the relationships among the objects in the object database being represented as edges of the graphs in the graph database; receiving, by the database system, information about a first object and information about a first dimension based on a first relationship associated with the first object; and performing, by the database system, a merge operation using the information about the first object and the information about the first dimension only on the graph database, the object database remaining unaffected by the merge operation.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein performing the merge operation on the graph database comprises merging nodes representing duplicate records associated with the first object.
 3. The method of claim 2, where the duplicate records associated with the first object are determined based on applying a duplicate detection algorithm to the first object.
 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising generating, by the database system, a merged node to represent a result of said merging the nodes representing the duplicate records associated with the first object.
 5. The method of claim 4, further comprising storing details of the merge operation.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein performing the merge operation on the graph database comprises merging nodes representing duplicate records associated with a second object related to the first object by the first relationship.
 7. The method of claim 5, wherein said performing the merge operation on the graph database does not affect nodes associated with the first object based on a second relationship.
 8. The method of claim 5, further comprising: performing, by the database system, a merge operation using the information about the first object and information about a second dimension based on the second relationship associated with the first object.
 9. The method of claim 5, wherein the graph database is stored as a separate database from the object database, wherein the graph database is configured to be synchronized with the object database, and wherein said performing the merge operation on the graph database is committed based on expiration of a commitment period such that said merge operation cannot be unmerged.
 10. An apparatus comprising: one or more processors; and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a plurality of instructions, which when executed, cause the one or more processors to: generate a graph database corresponding to an object database that includes a plurality of objects, each object having a relationship with one or more other objects in the database, the objects in the object database being represented as nodes of graphs in the graph database, the relationships among the objects in the object database being represented as edges of the graphs in the graph database; receive information about a first object and information about a dimension based on a first relationship associated with the first object; and perform a merge operation using the information about the first object and the information about the dimension only on the graph database, the object database remaining unaffected by the merge operation.
 11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said executing the instructions to perform the merge operation on the graph database comprises executing instructions to merge nodes representing duplicate records associated with the first object.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11, where the duplicate records associated with the first object are determined based on applying a duplicate detection algorithm to the first object.
 13. The apparatus of claim 12, further comprising executing instructions to generate a merged node to represent a result of said merging the nodes representing the duplicate records associated with the first object.
 14. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising executing instructions to store details of the merge operation.
 15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the graph database is stored as a separate database from the object database, and wherein the graph database is configured to be synchronized with the object database.
 16. A computer program product comprising computer-readable program code to be executed by one or more processors when retrieved from a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the program code including instructions to: generate a graph database corresponding to an object database that includes a plurality of objects, each object having a relationship with one or more other objects in the database, the objects in the object database being represented as nodes of graphs in the graph database, the relationships among the objects in the object database being represented as edges of the graphs in the graph database; receive information about a first object and information about a dimension based on a first relationship associated with the first object; and perform a merge operation using the information about the first object and the information about the dimension only on the graph database, the object database remaining unaffected by the merge operation.
 17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the instructions to perform the merge operation on the graph database comprises instructions to merge nodes representing duplicate records associated with the first object.
 18. The computer program product of claim 17, where the duplicate records associated with the first object are determined based on applying a duplicate detection algorithm to the first object.
 19. The computer program product of claim 18, further comprising instructions to generate a merged node to represent a result of said merging the nodes representing the duplicate records associated with the first object.
 20. The computer program product of claim 19, further comprising instructions to store details of the merge operation, to prevent the merge operation to be unmerged after expiration of a commitment period, wherein the graph database is configured to be synchronized with the object database, and wherein the graph database is stored as a separate database from the object database. 